Read My Fair Captain for Free Online Page B

I’ve been meaning to talk to you about—”
    Trouble grabbed his leg and moaned. “Oh, the pain. I think my leg is broken. I’m going to die. I probably even have a severe concussion and—”
    -36-

    My Fair Captain
    Nate scowled at his son thrashing around the deck. Now that the danger was over his stomach felt queasy. The pest could have been killed.
    Trouble stopped moving long enough to crack open his eyes.
    Catching sight of Nate, he moaned louder and began thrashing about again. “Oh, I’m dying…”
    Nate scooped the little phony into his arms and started toward their cabin. “Pain or not you will be punished for disobeying an order.”
    Suddenly, the cherub face tensed, all pretense of pain leaving. “I almost forgot. The admiral is on the televid. He needs to speak to you right away!”

    * * * * *
    His headache was coming back with a vengeance. Nate let go of the bridge of his nose, running his fingers over his mustache and beard, trailing his hand down his neck. He looked back at the monitor on his desk. “Okay, let me get this straight. You knew they had weapons before you sent me in there and you didn’t tell me?”
    Admiral Jenkins waved his chubby hand back and forth, shaking his head. “No, no, no. I knew we were missing weapons. I didn’t know where they got off to until I got the report from your ship saying you’d found them.” He stretched and yawned, staring at Nate when he was done. The man was purposely hedging.
    Nate shoved himself out of his chair and walked around to the other side of his desk. If he sat still any longer he was going to fall asleep. If it was any of the other IN Admirals he wouldn’t have dared break protocol, but this was Carl, who had been his friend for damned near twenty years, since Nate joined the Navy.
    After swiveling the televid to face him, Nate paced back and forth.
    “Carl, I’ve had a bad day. You sent me to a supposedly unarmed dinky backwater planet to deliver supplies for the resistance and my ship got shot at. After my crew captured the aggressors, we discovered they had a
    -37-

    J.L. Langley
    stash of IN class three weapons. The leader of the group of rebels took my first mate hostage, shot two of my crew and put carbon burns on my bulkheads before I re-apprehended him. We’ve had no luck getting information out of the group on where they obtained the guns, and now you’re telling me you knew the weapons were stolen, but not who stole them.” Nate stopped in front of the screen, raising an eyebrow at his commanding officer. “I’m bringing the detainees into headquarters. What else do you want from me? The last I heard, torturing prisoners for info was against IN policy.”
    The admiral grinned, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners, making him look younger than his sixty-two years. It was a grin Nate knew well, and it made his headache kick up a notch. That smile from his friend didn’t bode well. The old man had something planned, something Nate wasn’t going to like. “So you were paying attention, Nate.”
    Nate snorted. “Of course I was paying attention. What are you scheming, Carl?”
    Carl chuckled.
    Fuck.
    “How do you feel about a little undercover work?”
    Nate barely kept his mouth from dropping open. Spying? Carl wanted Nate to spy? Nate couldn’t intermingle with a crowd if his life depended on it. Forget the fact that he had a reputation as the IN’s infamous Captain Hawk. He was six-foot-five and two hundred and forty pounds—
    he did not blend into the background well.
    “Oh, cool. Can I come?” Trouble’s platinum curls preceded his grinning face around the hatch frame.
    Closing his eyes, Nate counted to ten. How many times had he told the pest not to eavesdrop? Hadn’t he just given the kid a severe dressing-down for disobeying?
    “Hi there, Trouble,” the Admiral said cheerfully.
    Nate opened his eyes and shot his son a glare. “Out.” He pointed his finger toward the hatch.
    -38-

    My Fair